Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed the first Iron Man movie and even thought Iron Man 2 wasn’t bad. So there was no way I wasn’t going to check out Iron Man 3. I was especially curious how the movie was going to handle the Mandarin, who I remember as Iron Man’s arch-enemy from the old comic books. So far, Marvel has taken a real-world approach to its superhero movies, but the Mandarin isn’t a real-world kinda guy. The question: how would Marvel handle a character whose powers are based on magic rather than the natural world in one of its movies?
Metacritic gave Iron Man 3 a 62% approval rating, while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a freshness rating of 78%. So more critics liked the movie than didn’t like the movie. What did I think? Clink the link to find out.
It didn’t suck. It was fun, but also pretty predictable. Let’s work our way out from there.
That one kid from Iron Man 3.
All three Iron Man movies feel really similar. It almost feels like the stories were kicked out of a computerized plot generator. For me, the similarities between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 are what made the sequel feel weaker than the first. Well, that and the fact that all the women in Tony’s life suddenly wanted him to die.
Despite the repetition, the producers always seem to find a way to make the movies fun. Not as fun as the first movie where we get to know Tony Stark and see what a mess he is, but fun nonetheless. Iron Man 3 continues this trend. I think they have Robert Downey Jr. to thank for that.
The best parts were the ones between Stark and this kid he meets after he crash lands in a small town. We get to see multiple versions of the Iron Man armor in this film, which holds true to the comic books, so that was kinda neat. It was also nice to see that Pepper Potts has a six-pack. The enemy, however, was the weakest of all three movies.
Even weaker than the Russian with his stupid bird.
They attempted to add some depth to Tony by giving him a new mental problem to solve. Thanks to the events from The Avengers movie, he now suffers from PTSD. I didn’t really care and neither will you. It barely factors into the story at all.
Major Spoiler Time
Iron Man! Cross your legs, you whore!
I’m about to destroy this movie for many of you now. If you don’t want that to happen, stop reading at the end of this paragraph. For those about to leave this review, I will declare Iron Man 3 a decent movie that you should go see if you just want to have a good time and don’t want something too deep or original. Have a good day.
Losers. Wait, you said you were leaving! No fair…
For the rest of you, I dare you to remain calm as I tell you that the Mandarin is fake. Totally fake. He’s just an actor paid by the real villain to appear on camera as a distraction. So no magic rings. No evil. No anything, really, except total lameness. I call, “Booooooooooo!”
After this was revealed halfway through the movie, I really expected to learn that the Mandarin was faking it the whole time. But sadly, no. As predictable as that would have been, I think it would have been better. This just felt cheap. When you make me feel all dirty inside, then dammit, you’ve gone too far!
Fakety fake fake bogus fake lamety lame lame.
I found it hard to care about the real villain, Killian, either. I also had trouble accepting the villain’s origin story and the basis for his powers.
If I was into using numbers to rate movies, I would give Iron Man 3 a three out of five. As it is, if you want to see a fun movie that has been Atheist Geek rated as “not bad,” then this is for you.
P.S.
Oh, and no Black Widow in this movie. Sorry gents. Yeah, that pissed me off too. And Happy is a major cock block. For this alone he deserves death. Remember that, Marvel, for Iron Man 4.
Death to all cock blockers the world over!
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